<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Ship Graveyard by Espequair</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27405574">Ship Graveyard</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Espequair/pseuds/Espequair'>Espequair</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Practical Guide to Evil - erraticerrata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:40:06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,048</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27405574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Espequair/pseuds/Espequair</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A place to store some of my PGTE snippets. Ranges from mindcontrol catgirl Catkua to Heroes!Calamities</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Akua gets a pet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the Discord PGTE and kept for the record.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Akua's enemies had yet to grasp the most salient of all truths: in games as in all things, the only move that mattered was the last.<br/> She’d been setting up hers from the moment she’d first laid eyes on the Squire.<br/>Later, at Marchford:<br/>“As to your earlier point about witnesses,” she said, idly waving her hand. “I would dispute that statement.”</p>
<p>The Heiress relished the twitch that passed through Cat's face. The Squire had tried to keep it hidden, but it was obvious to one raised at the knee of Tasia Sahelian. Akua could see the calculations running through her defeated foe's head: the Apprentice, touched by Corruption and already disposed of; the Archer, having slipped out with Hunter in tow; the Adjudant, slain by Fadilia in the midst of the brawl. She could see the inevitable, unavoidable, conclusions. The Heiress had beaten the Squire by helping her triumph, truly a victory her ancestor Mchumba would be proud of.<br/>And now... <br/>And now the really work could start. With Catherine on her knees at her feet, she could begin the process of breaking her. Hollowing her until Cathering Foundling was nothing but a shell, filling her anew with iron, sharpening her into the blade of a Black Knight that the Heiress could swing to cut the rot in the Tower. A monster of the Duni's own making that would tear the Empress's heart out of her chest. Truly, the Gods were fond of those little ironies of Fate.<br/>And once Dread Empress Magnificient sat in the tower? well, there'd always be a need for a loyal enforcer, a Black Knight loyal to her master.<br/>A Pet Catherine</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Introduction of the Dread Empress Magnificient</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Hall of Screams didn't quite spook me like it did the first time, but I didn't feel at ease in it, especially in the stretch I had filled over the last month. The faces of High Lady Abreha Mirembe and of Tasia Sahelian now hung last in the long corridor, staring at me with soulless eyes.<br/>Seeking reassurance, I held my hand gauntled in black steel up and received Akua's own hand, gloved in white lace that came up past her elbow. Our eyes met, and she allowed herself the rare smile she offered me when we where alone... Well, save for the hundreds of heads around us. Ahead, faint music started and she schooled her face in the noble front I could not read even now. <br/>She was radiant in her long white gown, and damned sight better than me in my black plate, even though it had been polished until not a single speck remained</p><p>"Thank you, my dearest heart." she whispered as the doors in front ahead of us opened and the Chancellor's first proclamation rang out</p><p>"All kneel for Her Most Dreadful Majesty Magnificient, First of Her Name, Tyrant of Dominions High and Low, Holder of the Nine Gates, Sovereign of All She Beholds"</p><p>Hand in hand, we advanced</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. KitCat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Your Most Dreadful Majesty..." I started<br/>
"Please, Cat," Akua interrupted me, a smirk on her lips, "call me Akua when we're in private"<br/>
If glares could kill, the Dread Empress would be a corpse on her throne right now.<br/>
"Master Akua," I chewed out, unable to leave the honorific out, "are you quite certain I need...?" I left the sentence hanging, pointing a finger at my outfit.<br/>
"Stay still", she ordered, freezing my body in place as she begun to walk around me. "Are you not grateful for my gifts? For night vision a goblin would envy?"<br/>
My golden eyes met her, black slits narrowing as I saw the pleasure she took in this ritual.<br/>
"Maybe you'd like to go back to being as deaf as any man?" My furry ears twitched as she clicked her tongue in mock disappointment. I could hear her heartbeat quickening as she held her laugh.<br/>
"And tell me, do you regret your newfound balance?"<br/>
A shiver went up my spine as her hand brushed my tail, a reminder of how deeply she'd mutilated my body to turn me in the perfect servant.</p><p>"Plus, as my Black Knight and first member of the Seraglio, it's only right there should be some aesthetic consideration to take in account"<br/>
Having completed her examination, she turns back to me and smiles with a face that had doomed more than one Lord and Lady in the court. "Now run along KitCat. Oh, and tell Cordelia I expect to see her tomorrow, Neshamah is coming for a visit, I expect my chief diplomat to be there"<br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Squire, Apprentice & Alaya</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Squire and Apprentice managed to intercept the Sentinels when they came to Alaya. What comes next for out """"heroes"""?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Dad? DADDY?!" Alaya of Satus' throat was scraped raw by the yelling, by the ash falling, by the smoke rising from the embers of the only home she'd ever known. Her cheeks were dry by now, her eyes long emptied of any tears.<br/>To the side, the Squire helped her look through the wreckage without a word while the Apprentice took care of the dead, closing eyes and muttering a few words each time.<br/>As her vision blurred again from the hot and acrid air, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Turning to the short Duni, Alaya was expecting some sort of comforting gesture, but he just shaked his head, vivid green eyes staring in her own.<br/>"Alaya, we have to get out of here"<br/>"No," she answered before almost doubling over coughing, "we need to... to find my father first".<br/>At that, the Squire hesitated but continued in the same gentle tone, "Allie, we just killed half a dozen Sentinels; there'll be more soon and I don't think we can take them on... There's nothing you can do for your father anymore."<br/>Alaya swallowed and looked away, back at the Apprentice whose gestures, now that she looked at them closely, had nothing to do with respect. He was leaving some of the corpses with their eyes open and for each, a spark of magic flowed from the mage's hand to their head.<br/>"They can't know you were here", she understood, "he's doing what, wiping the memories of bodies?"<br/>"Something like that", Amadeus admitted.<br/>They stood in silence for a while before the Soninke asked: "Where to now?"<br/>Surveying the green fields of the Stretch, the Squire answered in Mtethwa "We march west, Onwards to the fields of Callow."</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>